The Telegraph

The shocking truth about slavery in the Islamic world today

Up to 17 million people have passed through the slave trade in the Muslim world since the 7th century. Tragically, the practice lives on

What is remarkable today is how one version of slavery and the slave trade continues to dominate Western public consciousness. To take just one example, A Short History of Slavery, by the historian James Walvin, was published in 2007. Of the book’s 235 pages, 201 focus on the Americas. By contrast, the history of slavery in the Islamic world – so long, various and controversial – has been neglected. That is starting to change: a new generation of Moroccan, Tunisian, Algerian and (in particular) Turkish researchers are poring over the archives and asking uncomfortable questions. Among other things, their work will demonstrate that, although it has become fashionable in some quarters to vilify the West as the supreme historical villain, such a stance is historically and factually incorrect. https://archive.ph/31b2y

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/07/02/christian-artist-reported-to-police-gender-critical-views/ A Christian artist was reported to the police and banned from her own exhibition because of her gender-critical beliefs. Victoria Culf also claims a council worker wrongly accused her of being under police investigation when she was not. Mrs Culf launched legal action against Watford borough council last year on nine grounds, including breach of contract, discrimination and harassment. The 44-year-old, who has been an artist for 20 years, had been setting up her independently funded exhibition at Watford Museum when she became engaged in a conversation with a council worker about transgender issues. https://archive.ph/iht5P

I hadn’t noticed quite how much I’d got into the habit of phone-for-friends, laptop-for-work (although I realised a while ago that it makes me worse at personal emails that require a proper reply), but I’ve had a letter from a friend sitting on the coffee table for a month, looking increasingly accusatory. Just now, I thought “what if I type it on my phone?” and twenty minutes later I was copy-pasting a thousand words into a word processor on my laptop, adding a last minute thought, and hitting print. Who knew it was so simple?

The Spectator

Glastonbury has become a sinister festival of anti-Semitism

The punk rap act Bob Vylan appeared to whip the Glastonbury crowd into a frenzy of Israelophobia, chanting ‘Death, death to the IDF’.

Let’s speak frankly – our moral crisis is too pressing for pussy-footing. ‘Death to the IDF’ means the death of Jews. First, because the soldiers of the IDF are predominantly Jewish. But more importantly because this is the force tasked with defending the Jewish homeland from the armies of anti-Semites that surround it. The IDF is the only thing standing between the Jewish State and its genocidal obliteration by the apocalyptic bigots on its borders. The death of the IDF would be the death of the world’s only Jewish nation. Untold numbers of Jews would perish in the event of this thing dreamt of by the preening middle classes of Glastonbury. ‘We didn’t think of that’, some will say today, as shame intrudes into the sick joy they derived from praying for the death of other human beings. Well, to borrow a slogan beloved of you people: ‘Educate yourselves.’ https://archive.ph/PP1bV

Last summer, I had a brief disagreement with next door: I’d got sick of the six foot high nettles blocking the view from my kitchen window and chopped the tops off them, and he was being sniffy that I should have asked for permission. I just replied that I shouldn’t have needed to do it at all (ie: it’s his job), and that I hoped the roots weren’t undermining the boundary wall. He’s been out doing something noisy all morning (in the weather!), and I’ve just been out to pick lettuce only to find that he’s neatly strimmed the whole boundary. Olive branch, maybe?

Talk to me about sandwich fillings. I pretty much always have salami, cheese, tomato and lettuce. I occasionally mix things up with ham instead of salami, and the two are pretty much the only thing in my diet that count as UPFs. What could I have instead? There are those packs of precooked chicken and beef slices, but they’re expensive and presumably also full of chemical preservatives. I guess I could buy a beef joint and cook/slice/freeze it, but even by my standards that seems like a faff. (I’m not after elaborate stuff like Philly steak or fried chicken caesar, just stuff I can take out of the fridge and slap on a slice of bread.)

Eww. One trap missing this morning, after some searching I found it hidden away in a corner, in the general area from where I saw a live one skitter away when I went outside, the content’s entrails hanging out.

Oh, fuck off. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/06/29/supermarkets-told-to-cut-100-calories-from-shoppers-baskets/ Supermarkets will be ordered to cut up to 100 calories from the average shopping basket under a new “nanny state” drive to tackle obesity. Ministers are set to impose a “healthy food standard” that will force stores to curtail sales of sugary and salty snacks in favour of more fruit and vegetables. Shops failing to meet the mandatory targets could face fines, which retail sources warned could see prices rise. https://archive.ph/ZBETW

The Met Office: Warning! Heatwave! Danger! Amber Alert! The north of England:

What, indeed, the fuck.

Grooming gangs, multiculturalism and the silence of the ‘progressive’ feminists

Women and girls have been sacrificed to political correctness.

Woke feminists refuse to address the elephant in the room. Which isn’t race or ethnicity, but culture. Of course, there is no biological reason why Eritrean men in Britain should be over 20 times more likely to be convicted of a sexual offence than people born in Britain. It is not down to genetics that Congolese nationals are 12 times more likely to be convicted of violent crime. Nor that Pakistani-origin men have long been overrepresented in grooming prosecutions. Sadly, there remain many non-Western cultures where misogyny is prevalent, where women are seen as inferior, where ‘impious’ Western women are seen as ‘fair game’. Local traditions, religion and tribalism can all play a role. These are not ‘racial’ matters, and nor are these cultural factors fixed. Culture can be challenged and changed, just as backward attitudes were once challenged in the West. You would expect feminists of all people to recognise this.

Oh, joy: it appears that invisible midge season has arrived.

https://archive.is/2025.06.25-222001/https://www.thetimes.com/uk/scotland/article/transgender-police-scotland-sex-gender-searches-supreme-court-l6s29h8m6 Transgender detainees undergoing police searches will be allowed to ask for officers of different sexes to frisk their top and bottom halves, under new guidelines. The advice — designed to accommodate people who have not completed a full surgical transition — is among a series of protocols outlined in new official Police Scotland guidance issued on Wednesday. The latest guidance suggests detainees, who are not necessarily accused or convicted of any crime, will be able to request what is called a “separate area search”. A new guidance document explains that it “means that one half of their body will be searched by one biological sex officer and the other half of their body will be searched by a different biological sex officer.”

School question. My sister’s step-son is currently doing exams, and went for a tour of a sixth form yesterday. My mother is adamant that the exams are just mocks, has she got the wrong end of the stick or would he really be looking at sixth forms this early?

So, it turns out that blocking that hole in the wall did stop the rats using it: just seen one casually climb up it and down the other side instead. On the plus side, the duck’s food is not getting nearly so licked clean, and the last few nights have seen the bait taken from the traps for the first time since I had to finish off that big one, so I’ll have a go at setting them again tonight.

Odd: a couple of very unhappy broadbean plants in an otherwise happy-looking bed. Any ideas? Suppose I’d better pull them out in case it’s contagious.

Wall guy came through:

Why are footballers being forced to promote Pride?

No one should be punished for refusing to wear the rainbow symbol.

To call Barsacq’s intervention hypocritical is an understatement. Football administrators love to talk a good game about ‘inclusion’ and ‘diversity’, except when it comes to applying those principles to people who disagree with them. Players like Matić, reportedly an Orthodox Christian, may hold views on homosexuality that French elites find distasteful. But they are also French citizens, and are as such entitled to freedom of expression, conscience and religion. Indeed, from a legal perspective, the LFP’s decision to sanction Matić and others may well breach those rights. Precedent suggests that the right to freedom of belief protects silence just as much as it protects speech. Courts have confirmed that individuals can’t be compelled to make statements against their will, nor be penalised for choosing not to perform gestures of ideological conformity.

Even allowing for the politicking and frankly tabloid journalism, there is something not right here. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/06/24/the-mistreatment-of-lucy-connolly-in-prison-is-sinister/ It comes to something when a senior British politician has to visit a person in prison, not only to show his support but to try to protect her against further harm. Yet that is exactly what happened when Richard Tice, deputy leader of Reform UK, met Lucy Connolly at HMP Peterborough on Tuesday morning. I had informed Tice that, last Thursday, Lucy says she was manhandled by up to six prison officers to a wing which houses the most volatile and dangerous prisoners. “Five days after the incident, the bruises from the handcuffs on Lucy’s wrists are still significant – yellow. It was obviously horrible what she went through,” Tice told me just after he emerged from the jail. “On Thursday, she was mistreated without provocation. Full force was used with no justification. She was starved of food, with no lunch or dinner, after the incident. She was denied enhanced accommodation to which she was entitled and they gave her, frankly, the Nutters Wild Wing – full of druggies and violent offenders.” https://archive.ph/fQklD

Oh gawd! I’ve been intrigued for a while about the Village Hall suddenly seeming flush with cash — fancy leaflets advertising events, “FREE burgers”, “FREE concerts” and so on, so when the latest one (“Join us for The Big Lunch: free soup, sandwiches and cake”) popped up on the WhatsApp I asked what the deal was, thinking maybe a legacy. Turns out they’ve been diligently applying for every grant under the sun, to which fair play, but now I’ve got a deluge of “We hope you’ll join us!” and “Shall I pick you up on the way past?” in my replies…. I should have kept quiet!